Children of War: How Intelligence Services Recruit Adolescents for Sabotage and Espionage

Not all children in this war perish beneath the rubble. Some lose their sense of security, their childhood, and their future in a less visible manner, becoming instruments in the hands of adult actors of the conflict.

The war in Ukraine has revealed a brutal truth: today, children are not only victims of bombs, deportations, and violence, but are also treated as an operational resource exploited by state intelligence services. Adolescents, recruited via encrypted messaging platforms, enticed by financial incentives or subjected to pressure and blackmail, are used for acts of sabotage, reconnaissance, and—in extreme cases—for acts of violence of a terrorist nature.

This dimension of the war remains largely overshadowed by images of destroyed cities and statistics on civilian casualties, although its consequences may prove equally long-lasting. Children exploited for intelligence-related activities are doubly victimised by the conflict: first by systemic violence that deprives them of security and stability, and subsequently by the cynical calculations of states and armed actors for whom age becomes an operational advantage rather than a moral barrier. Ukraine is currently the epicentre of this phenomenon, but it is not its sole theatre. Cases documented in Israel, Iran, and European states demonstrate that the recruitment of minors for covert operations is becoming an element of a broader, global logic of hybrid warfare.

The following text seeks to name a phenomenon that too often escapes public attention: children as victims of war who are compelled to participate in it on the opposite side of the barricade.

Children in the Logic of War: Between Humanitarian Protection and Operational Instrumentalisation

The war in Ukraine destroys childhood in at least two fundamental ways. The first is the most visible and corresponds to the classical image of armed conflict. It encompasses the death of children, physical injuries, exposure to violence, loss of home, the disintegration of family ties, and long-term psychological consequences that often accompany minors throughout their lives. The second mode of destruction is far less prominent in public debate, although from a security perspective it is of comparable gravity. In this dimension, children cease to be solely victims of hostilities and instead become an operational resource, utilised for espionage, diversionary activities, or acts of a terrorist character. In such cases, minors simultaneously function as victims of war and as its coerced executors, recruited through promises of financial gain, psychological manipulation, blackmail, or fear.

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